


I Will Never Let You Go

by brokenhighways



Series: Happy Endings [3]
Category: Supernatural RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-26
Updated: 2014-01-26
Packaged: 2018-01-10 04:13:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1154749
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brokenhighways/pseuds/brokenhighways
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jensen ends up putting his ‘Operation: Win Jared Back’ on hold. He tells himself that it’s for the best because rushing into things probably won’t help and realistically he knows that he and Jared have to work at being friends first before they can move onto being something else again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Will Never Let You Go

**Author's Note:**

> Follows [_No Matter What It Takes_](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1129666) and _[I Can Feel Your Heartbeat Slowing Down](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1143598)_.

Jensen ends up putting his ‘Operation: Win Jared Back’ on hold. The pace at work picks up and all he does for the next couple of months is work ridiculous hours and sleep whenever he has a free minute to himself. He tells himself that it’s for the best because rushing into things probably won’t help and realistically he knows that he and Jared have to work at being friends first before they can move onto being something else again. That’s easier said than done though, because Jared’s mostly been AWOL ever since they got locked in Danneel’s pantry. He’s showed up at a few brunches and breakfasts, and even the bar that one time, but that’s it. Jensen feels as though he should be grateful for the space but he’s not really, he just misses Jared. Judging by the silence at the table on this particular morning, so do the rest of the group.

“Is Jared going to be joining us today?” Jensen asks Chad, who’s wolfing down an alarming number of pancakes. Chad shrugs, wipes his mouth and burps. At this point, Jensen’s not even grossed out by it anymore.

“I don’t know,” he says. “He moved out like a month ago.”

“Where to?” Chris asks. “And why are you just telling us this now?”

“I dunno,” Chad says with another shrug. “I’m ninety-nine percent sure that he didn’t tell me, and it’s not like we’re allowed to talk about him in Jensen’s presence.” Danneel elbows Chad in the side but the damage is done.

Katie laughs. “By ninety-nine you mean zero, right? You still haven’t returned our blender back and I remind you every time I see you.”

“You’ll get it back,” Chad says. “I promise.”

“What do you mean you’re not allowed to talk about him?” Jensen is perplexed, and also desperate to avoid yet another conversation about a condemned blender that Chad’s probably contaminated.

“It’s awkward and uncomfortable so we all decided not to talk about Jared whenever we’re hanging out with you. We would give him the same courtesy but he’s never around anymore, so.” Chad doesn’t sound too happy about that fact and Jensen feels bad for feeling relieved that Jared is avoiding all of them instead of just him. Still, they’re all best friends and they shouldn’t let a breakup break _all_ of them apart.

“Me and Jared are fine with each other,” Jensen says. “I mean whenever he shows up, we get along great.” It’s true. Things have been fine. They can look at each other and exchange words without either of them bursting into tears or arguing, which is fine progress in Jensen’s opinion.

“That’s nice and all but _you’re_ the reason that he barely ever shows up,” Chad says, because he’s apparently in a sharing and caring mood. “You tend to get really passive-aggressive and weird and I honestly don’t blame him for not showing up anymore. Especially after the winning him back mess. That was uncool of you, by the way.” Katie starts coughing loudly and Chris swats the back of Chad’s head.

“Can someone other than Chad explain to me what’s going on?” Jensen says. “Please.”

Katie sighs, “So Jared might have overheard you saying that you were going to win him back and I might have persuading him to give you a chance.

“She also _might_ have strung him along when you made no move,” Aldis adds. He also earns an elbow in the side for his troubles.

“I…I’ve been busy with work.” Jensen’s tone is defensive, but it’s true. He _has_ been busy.

“Not to be the bad guy here on anything, but maybe you putting work first is some sort of sign that you’re ready to move on?” Danneel is giving him a knowing look despite the fact that she quite clearly knows nothing, and Jensen wonders why they’re piling in on him today.

"You know what? I don't have time for this," he stands and drops a couple of bills on the table, "call me when you're done being assholes.” He strides out of the diner quickly, sighing when he sees that there's still an hour before he has to be at work. He decides to go back home and maybe raid the fridge, see what he can rustle up for his lunch. A quick five minute walk later and Jensen's reached his apartment. He stops dead in his tracks when he sees a familiar looking figure hovering by the door. It's Jared. And from the looks of things he's just leaving. There's a cardboard box in one hand, and he's using the other to lock the door.

"Hey," Jensen says. Jared jumps in shock and drops his keys. Jensen moves forward to pick them up just as Jared does and their eyes catch as their fingers brush. They share a quiet, tense moment before Jensen pulls back. "Chad told us today that you moved out of his place."

Jared's eyes widen. "I told him to tell you guys like a month ago. Otherwise I would have mentioned it myself." Jensen doesn't respond. He feels his face tighten involuntarily. Jared's shoulders slump, and he sets the box down.

"I'm sorry," he says after a brief silence. "I should have told you myself. I've been busy as hell, but that's no excuse. I know firsthand what Chad is like."

"It's fine..." Jensen pauses, "it's not like we have to tell each other everything, right. You've got your life and I've got mine." Jensen realises how untrue that is as he says it. They have the same friends; they live in the same town. Their lives are intertwined whether they like it or not. And it really truly sucks that they're currently in this weird space between exes and friends, because Jensen's not sure he knows how to just be Jared's friend. And he's not sure if he's ready to start persuading Jared to take him back. He's not sure he knows _how_.

"No, no, we're friends, right," Jared says. "Friends tell each other important stuff like when they move into a new place. Ergo, I'm in the wrong here."

"And I could have called you and found out for myself," Jensen shoots back. "We all could have, and five months ago, we _would_ have. So me and you need to get our shit together and learn how to be in the same vicinity again."

"I don't need to learn that," Jared says. "We were together for ten years...I'm...you're still my best friend. You always will be."

Jensen doesn't know what to say to that.

~

Jensen ends up calling Jared during his lunch break to see if he wants to grab dinner. Not as a date or anything, but so they can talk things out. Now that he knows that Jared knew that he'd planned on winning him back, Jensen has realized that it isn't a fairytale. He's not going to woo Jared and sweep him off his feet with a series of heartfelt gestures that he never did before Jared broke up with him. But he’s not going to pretend that the last ten years didn’t happen either because no matter what anyone says, a lot of that time was good. However, if there’s one thing that Jensen is good at, it’s going back to basics and working his way up from there.

Jared shows up at five in the morning in a disgustingly cheerful mood and several grocery bags attached to his hand. Jensen glares at him blearily. Jared had suggested breakfast instead of dinner on account of him being at work and while Jensen had agreed, no one mentioned anything about five am to him. He follows Jared to the kitchen and peers at him closely.

“Did you even sleep?” he asks. It’s more of a growl, but hey he hasn’t had his coffee yet. Jared turns to give him a weird look.

“What? Of course I did!” His voice is an octave higher than its normal timbre, so Jensen _knows_ that he’s lying. He raises an eyebrow, fully prepared to engage in a stare-off despite the fact that he’s still half asleep. Jared breaks within seconds. “Fine! I didn’t. You know how I get when I move into a new place - and this is the first time I’ve ever lived on my own. I’m pretty sure that the apartment is--”

“--haunted?” Jensen’s heard this several times before. Jared’s into ghosts and all of that shit. Leaky taps, creaky doors, unexplained breeze - all are the work of ghosts. “Didn’t you get your psychic friend to like, free the place of all evil or something.” Jensen can’t keep his amusement out of his voice. Jared’s irrational fear of _ghosts_ is hilarious to him but he’s always liked how passionate Jared is about it. So much so that he’s indulged a few of these sessions with Jared’s psychic; no one can ever say that he didn’t love Jared enough.

“She isn’t talking to me,” Jared says glumly. “Apparently calling off a wedding is fourteen years bad luck, and she doesn’t want the Gods to think that she had any part in it.”

“The “Gods”,” Jensen scoff. “I bet she made you pay for that last consultation too.”

Jared returns Jensen’s scoff with one of his own, “She has a _gift_ that we could only dream of having ourselves. Of course I paid her.” Jensen laughs wearily, heart suddenly aching at the familiarity of this. Them. He misses it. It's probably why the next thing out of his mouth is:

"I know that you overheard me talking to Danneel." Jared's facing Jensen's direction, and he picks up on the myriad of emotions that cross his face. He's not sure what he wants to get out of this conversation, or why he doesn't just save himself the heartache and just pretend that Katie had never said anything.

"Right," Jared says slowly when Jensen keeps looking at him expectantly. "I did. And I'm guessing that Katie told you about our conversation right afterwards." He doesn't seem _angry_ but Jensen can hear the annoyance in his voice. That just annoys him because he hates that they've done this to themselves; that they can't even talk to each other without it being awkward.

"Well, why didn't you say anything?" Jensen does his best to keep his voice level.

"It's not my place," Jared says and he turns so that he's facing the sink. "Plus we haven't exactly been talking."

Jensen snorts, "Yeah, and whose fault is that?" Jared’s still got his back to him and it pisses Jensen off to no end. The least that Jared can do is look at him. He owes Jensen that much.

“If you’d asked me to try and work things out back when I’d heard you, I probably would have said yes,” Jared says. “And that would have not solved the issue, and I get it - _I’m_ the one with the issue, the one who called everything off. I thought that maybe you’d realised that papering over the cracks would get us nowhere.”

“What are you saying?” Jensen says tiredly. “I don’t want to hear another long, drawn out speech where you tell me nothing. Just get to the point.”

“The point is that I spend almost every second of every day hating myself for doing what I did, for hurting you,” Jared turns around finally, though he seems to shrink backwards somehow, as if he’s pushing himself away. “Some days I think that I did the right thing and on others I feel like I’ve made a huge mistake. If I feel like that, then you must be even more conflicted. How can I expect _you_ to forgive me when I haven’t forgiven myself.” Jared’s voice breaks a little towards the end there and Jensen finds himself at a loss for words. Truth be told, this is round about the time that Jared would bolt and Jensen doesn’t think he’d be able to stop him if he left. Jared doesn’t move though, he just looks down at the floor sadly and Jensen regrets bringing it up because Jared’s touched on something else that Jensen’s been keeping buried down, an omission of his own.

“You know, when you called the wedding off, you said ‘I don’t think we should get married anymore’,” he says. Jared gives him a puzzled look. “Not, ‘I think we should break-up’, both of those things are not the same.”

“There is no way that you would have been happy with us just demoting our relationship status back to boyfriend and boyfriend.”

Jensen takes a breath, “Remember how we agreed that you’d do most of the planning because I was so busy with work?” In hindsight, that should probably have been an indication of how things would turn out.

“Yeah,” Jared sighs, as if he’s not really liking where the conversation is headed. “You were supposed to be in charge of the rings. I never did see them when we were cancelling and returning everything.” Jensen does not even want to remember how awkward _that_ day was.

“That’s because I never got them.”

“I... _what_?” Jared stares at him in shock. Jensen really regrets starting this conversation before they ate because not only is he desperately in need for some coffee, he’s also starving and clearly not thinking straight. The ring thing was a pure accident. He kept meaning to do it until he left it off his day planner one day and just never wrote it back in. It didn’t even click in his mind as he watched Jared organise flowers, the venue, invitations. Ironically, he only remembered that he hadn’t ordered them the day before Jared called the whole thing off. At the time, he’d thought that it’d been a good luck omen. Money saved and whatnot, but now he wonders if there was something else behind it. He’d been the one to propose and they’d picked out their engagement rings together, so it’s not like he had something against rings. Jensen took his off the day they broke up, but he’d noticed that Jared wore his for a while before it vanished.

“Jensen.” Jared’s voice snaps him out of his thoughts and Jensen looks up. Jared’s shock seems to have evaporated. “I said that you not getting the rings doesn’t mean anything. You just forgot. It--”

“If you say _happens_ , I will deck you,” Jensen says. “Look, I fucked up, okay. If I was really into the wedding, I would have gotten those rings way before the rehearsal dinner or told you before now. We both fucked up, and we both have to forgive each other and take equal blame. No more of this ‘it’s all my fault’ bullshit.”

“Okay,” Jared says. “You’re right. Equal blame.” He still looks a little dazed but Jensen thinks that they’re finally getting somewhere.

Or well, he _hopes_ they are.

~

“This is ridiculous,” Jensen says as he stands in Jared’s living room in a circle of lit candles. “And dangerous. God, I almost married a crazy person.”

“And I almost married a non-believer,” Jared fires back. “It’s a good thing we got out of it when we could.” Jensen laughs a lot louder than the response really warrants, but this is progress, right? They’re at Jared’s apartment doing some ‘spirit vanquishing ritual’ or something. Despite his disdain of this whole process, it was Jensen’s idea. He proposed that he do something for Jared to make up for the ring thing - which Jared didn’t even seem to be mad about but whatever - and Jared would do something for Jensen to make up for not talking to him before he called off the wedding. It isn’t a foolproof resolution but it is a start.

“Oh, I meant to ask you something,” Jared says when he’s done chanting out a bunch of shit that makes no sense. Jensen can’t help wondering if there’s some sort of waiting period that Jared is violating by not giving the ritual a moment of silence. “Are we still booked in the same hotel room for Sandy’s wedding?”

“She’s getting married?” Jensen asks, sure that this is the first time he’s hearing of this.

“Yeah, she sent us all the reservation stuff ages ago,” Jared replies. “It’s this weekend. She spent a _whole_ year planning it.” That’s probably why he doesn’t remember.

“Do we have to go?” Jensen all but whines. He’s not sure if he can handle being at a _wedding_ with Jared right now and from the look on Jared’s face, he’s only just coming to that same conclusion.

“She’s one of our oldest friends,” Jared points out. “But...I will give you a bonus ‘favour’ and make an excuse for you if you want.” An unexpected wave of emotion hits Jensen suddenly and it takes him a few minutes to compose himself enough to respond coherently. Sandy’s wedding is probably going to be awkward for them both - they’ll be placed under the scrutiny of eyes and subjected to incessant questions. As much as Jensen would love to avoid all of that, there’s no way he can let Jared bear the brunt of it on his own.

“The fact that you’d do that means a lot,” he says. “But I’ll come with you and we’ll face everyone together.”

“Together,” Jared echoes with a whisper of a smile so familiar that it almost makes Jensen _ache_ with want. He and Jared might not go back to what they were, but Jensen’s holding onto hope.

Sometimes that’s all one needs.


End file.
